Gaza: Baroness Warsi resignation is a hammer-blow for David Cameron

Sayeeda Warsi has quit the government over its Gaza policy, which she says is ‘morally indefensible’ (Picture: AP)

There’s no other way of looking at it: the dramatic resignation of Sayeeda Warsi from the government this morning is a huge setback for David Cameron and the rest of the increasingly divided British government.

Warsi, who was the first female Muslim Cabinet minister when she joined the government in 2010, has quit her Foreign Office job over Britain’s support of Israel.

With deep regret I have this morning written to the Prime Minister & tendered my resignation. I can no longer support Govt policy on #Gaza

We should have seen this coming. In recent days her Twitter account has been littered with pro-Palestinian statements, highlighting how one child has been killed in Gaza every hour over one two-day period and calling for a Palestinian state.

This is serious stuff. It’s not the meek ‘I quit, I promise I’ll still support you’ type of resignation letter. It’s the ‘you’re completely wrong, and I am going to make you pay for it’ kind. She says:

‘I believe our approach in relation to the current conflict is neither consistent with our values, specifically our commitment to the rule of law and our long history of human rights.’

Warsi then suggests there is ‘great unease across the Foreign Office, among both ministers and senior officials, in the way recent decisions have been made’.

Let’s be clear about what she’s saying here. It’s No 10 she’s attacking – and that means Cameron himself. Maybe there’s a jab at the new foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, too, for letting the PM dictate foreign policy.

Warsi appears to be making a veiled complaint that we’re seeing a return to the ‘sofa government’ of the Tony Blair years.

Her resignation has triggered shockwaves across the government, which appears increasingly divided over how to respond to Israel’s unblinking approach to the Gaza conflict.

Margot James, the former bag-carrier of William Hague, has been outspoken about the government’s approach. Boris Johnson has called Israel’s actions ‘disproportionate’. Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has declared it’s an open secret that there are disagreements within the government over how to approach the issue.

Very courageous of my brave friend @SayeedaWarsi to resign over this Governments inexplicable silence and total weakness on the #Gaza crisis

A momentum seems to be building which leaves Cameron in a very shaky position. He has already been criticised for not being vocal enough against Israel.

So when at least ten people were killed in an Israeli attack near a UN-run school in Gaza at the weekend – a tragedy described by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon as a ‘moral outrage and a criminal act’ – eyebrows were raised across Westminster when Cameron refused to say whether he agreed with that view.

Perhaps if he’d known that Warsi was about to resign he might have taken a different line. As it is, his reluctance to really speak out against Israel appears to be leaving him isolated at the top of his splintering government.

Palestinians look at destroyed houses after returning to the Shejaia neighbourhood, which witnesses said was heavily hit by Israeli shelling and air strikes during the Israeli offensive. (Picture: Reuters)

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